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Most Influential People In Technical Mac Community
An anonymous reader writes "The MacTech Journal of Macintosh Technology has released MacTech 25, a list of top 25 most influential people in the *Technical* Mac community. According to the magazine 'The MacTech 25 is designed to recognize the technical contributions of developers writers, bloggers, problem-solvers and personalities to the Macintosh technical community.' The people were chosen by popular voting during June. Bios and pictures of the people on the list will be published in the printed MacTech magazine in time for WWDC."
The only thing more pathetic than a PC user is a PC user trying to be a Mac user. We have a name for you people: switcheurs.
There's a good reason for your vexation at the Mac's user interface: You don't speak its language. Remember that the Mac was designed by artists, for artists, be they poets, musicians, or avant-garde mathematicians. A shiny new Mac can introduce your frathouse hovel to a modicum of good taste, but it can't make Mac users out of dweebs and squares like you.
So don't force what doesn't come naturally. You'll be much happier if you stick to an OS that matches your personality. And you'll be doing the rest of us a favor, too; you leave Macs to Mac users, and we'll leave beige to you.
I can't believe they left out Jason Kottke! I think the voting was rigged!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
works for Apple. So gets a very honorable mention, because employees are exempt from the list.
I click on the link, only to get an error page. It says, Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
;-)
So Slashdot is implying that there is no such thing as the technical Mac community?? Burrrrn!!!
It's all text, all names, and no links. Who ARE those people? I have no idea! I wanted to find out, but it looks like I'd have to Google each and every name.
Have you ever noticed that when Forbes or someone makes a list like this, they at LEAST give each person a few words to describe who they work for or some such?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
This, like the "Mac Daily Journal Power 25" list that preceded it, seems to be an accounting of 'people who we have heard of'. What does it actually indicate? Do these people have some kind of influence over something? It just seems to be a particularly pointless popularity contest.
Considering the knee-jerk reaction most Apple-philes have to anything this man (or his company) says or does, I would certainly think he would have made the list... I'm willing to bet that Microsoft has had an enormous impact on how Apple has crafted their products and presence in the market over the years.
I'm no healthnut, but I'm interested: www.healthbolt.net
Seriously, I could open up notepad right now and type up 25 names with no bios or links and call that an article too.
It would be easy. None of those bothersome <a href>'s to worry about getting in the way of my list.
Why didn't Dvorvack make the list?
There's a Mac community?
"Oh boy"
One only has to look at Vista to realize how much is flowing from Apple to Microsoft, not the other way around.
There are very few features Microsoft implements and Apple duplicates. So in what way in Bill influential on what Apple does? Apple seems to be well ahead of Microsoft at this point from a strategic OS and application perspective.
The only recent thing I could see Apple possibly adopting ome variant off is application ribbons from the new Office.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There's someone other than Steve? wow.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I was surprised that Leo Laporte wasn't on this list. He's done wonders over the years in knocking out the Mac myths that became irrelevant with Os X. His voice travels far and is broadcast wide as well.
Here's what I know of and/or could find for the ones I didn't.
Unfortunately, it seems that Slashdot has a limitation on the minimum number of characters per line. So I can't just create a nice, simple list, but instead need a significant amount of text to pad out the list, so that I can make it past the filters being used. But I'm still not there yet... sooner or later I will (20.4 is still too few). I'm probably going to have to type a whole lot of crap in here just to deal with the 25 names that are only a few characters each. (and I tried removing returns from the message, but it didn't seem to help at all)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Yeah, since the list was a bit heavy with writers, you'd think he'd rate. His Qdial desk accessory was one of my favorate bits of code back in the mid-80's, when I was constantly dialing up BBS'. Its innovation was to flog the modem during a Mac's vertical blanking interval (screen refresh, when whatever application you were using and the OS were otherwise twiddling their thumbs), which allowed me to keep working while I waited to connect to a busy board. This was before the Multifinder, and my first practical taste of multitasking, outside of a VAX/VMS system.
Luke, help me take this mask off
About half the people on this list write for the magazine that published the list.
Here's how this works:
(1) Magazine publishes list of "influencial" people.
(2) Magazine includes their regular contributors on the list.
(3) Magazine begins referring to their contributors as "highly influencial members of the Mac community."
(4) Magazine hopes we all fall for it.
This is no different than George W. Bush calling his house in Texas a "ranch" in hopes that everyone else will call it a ranch.
It has no lifestock and (originally had) no horses, yet all the press called it a ranch because that's what they were told. Six years later, his house is a ranch.
Some of these guys are fairly well-known in the community, but I can't think of any example of them exerting influence on Apple, the developers, or the users.. Aaron does a good job of introducing new Cocoa developers to what I'd consider best coding practices, though...
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The MacTech 25 is no popularity contest, nor
is it to "pick your favorite CEO." We looked for the most influential in
the Mac TECHNICAL market.
This seems simliar to American Idol saying that this year, they've instructed the caller-in voters to pick purely on ability. How else could David Pogue and Mike Breeden -- admittedly both *very* influencial writers and news reporters in the Mac "space" -- out-garner Glenda Adams (of Aspyr.com fame, formerly president of Westlake Interactive), who seems, at times, to single-handedly not only keep Mac gamers with options, but also keep anyone interested in the Mac as a gaming platform?
Even then I'm just picking from my own favorites. What techs have these people championed? What BurgerLibs have they created or OpenGLs have they supported?
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Or was that last week?
Oops! My bad. This ain't MacDailyNews.
I was surprised and pleased to see Andy Ihnatko on there. I guess I'd missed him for a few years -- ever since he stopped doing the second-to-last-page columns for MacWorld (and before that, if memory serves, MacUser), I'd been wondering whatever happened to him. There was a considerable period during what I call the "dark ages" of the Mac when the only reason I kept up my subscription was for his column.
After all, props are still in order if only for being the inventor of "Web That Smut," possibly the only good thing to ever happen as the result of the Communications Decency Act. (The original column is here, archived via the Wayback Machine, but I'm not sure if Slashdot is going to mangle the link.)
And of course there's also the millenial version, Web That DeCSS!
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
MacUser / January 1996 Column
Web That Smut!
This column is for the last of you Internet holdouts. Your pigheaded refusal to help line the pockets of those friendly and monolithic communications giants ends today, for as a public service this month, I'll be dragging you kicking and screaming into the Internet community, with the most exciting new party game to hit the scene since the first time someone in a basement shouted, "Left foot . . . blue!"
Bear with me for a moment. You probably already know that the incredible explosion of the World Wide Web is partly attributable to how easily the Web allows two electronic "pages" separated by vast geographic and ideological distance to be linked together and freely accessed. In addition, the Web allows properly motivated people to view images of a fundamentally naughty nature. I say that these are two great tastes that taste great together and have developed Web That Smut!, the thrilling new online game that combines the intellectual stimulation of the film-nerd party classic The Coppola Connection with the competitive thrills of the smash game show Name That Tune.
The object of Web That Smut!: to proceed from a perfectly innocent starting point on the Web to . . . hang on -- I've got the text of the legislation written down somewhere. Aha! -- "words and/or images of a prurient nature which violate reasonable standards of good taste in the town and/or county of its source or destination of transmission."
Here's how to play. You and your opponent sit at opposite sides of a Mac with Internet access and a Web browser up and running. Your opponent names a Web site. You then offer an opening bid of how many mouse clicks it will take to move from that friendly locale to an image of graphic smut. Just as in the TV original, you barter the wager back and forth until one of you loses your nerve.
You: I can Web That Smut! in five mouse clicks.
Opponent: (after a wary pause) Web That Smut!
You then have the agreed upon number of mouse clicks to locate any text or graphics that, when accessed, immediately take your mind's eye back to the lecture your clergyman gave your entire Sunday-school class when he caught your friend staring at the depilatory ads in Woman's Day.
To illustrate: You begin at Apple's top Web page (http://www.apple.com/). Glancing through the contents, you wisely spend your first mouse click jumping to Outside Resources. From there, Apple and Macintosh User Groups seems the obvious choice, but after carefully examining the entire page, you click on Online Publications of Interest instead; the casual mention of "eZines" in the item's description makes you suspect that it's a sure path to pay dirt. Or perhaps not, as you're presented with a list of dry technical journals and industry news. Beads of sweat form as you realize that you have only four mouse clicks left and that those'll run out quickly if you need to work your way through a Best of the Net page.
But what's that you spy in the middle of the screen? You're saved! Amusing Rants on Internet Topics! As a longtime Net jockey, you understand only too well the significance of the word rant, and so it is with no little confidence that you stab the pointer down on DaveNet. Hmm. Nothing there but a file reference . . . that's no good. Skip to Dave's home page, and see if there's a directory of sorts. Netscape and your unaccelerated-graphics card require a moment to draw the page, but when it's done, you see the finish line right there in front of you -- in the form of a link marked Sexuality. The window's title bar now reads A Society of Parents and . . . a thoughtful, well-reasoned, and entertaining commentary on the need for parents to take an active role in their children's development and activities? What the hell is this?! But wait, Dave comes through, inserting a gratuitous photo of a nude lady at the very end just to get Senator Exon steamed, with a link to the Libido page thrown in for good measure. By now, members of the crowd can no longer cont
Kottke ... is that Dutch?